I just Beat The GMAT!

Yeah. Done with it and glad it is over. Although I scored pretty much where I figured I would, a part of me wants a higher score

I started thinking about taking the test a couple of months back. I went on a book shopping spree and ordered everything (they are all on sale starting now!). I have OG11, OG Verbal Review, OG Quant Review, Kaplan, Kaplan 800, Princeton Review AND Manhattan GMAT SC GUide. The only books I ended up using were OG11 and Manhattan SC Guide. The others are in pristine condition! (As a side note, send me a private message if you want to buy any of these. I am in New York City.)

However, all my studying was done on Beat The GMAT and Test Magic forums. I figured that since only the questions that get posted on the forums are the ones someone is unable to do, or has a doubt in, these questions would provide good practice. One good thing I did was read forums consistently everyday for like an hour in the evening after I get home from work and study maybe 2-3 hours on the weekends.

Verbal was my Achilles heel and I knew that if I get past the '40' barrier, I would be in good shape.

During the test, AWA started off ok. I didn't practice any essay writing before hand and so getting even a 5.0 on AWA would be acceptable to me. Quant started off pretty well and I really got concerned towards the middle since the section didn't seem to get any tougher as some other debriefs had mentioned. A score of 50 does suggest that I made probably careless mistake since there wasn't a single problem I faced that I thought I couldn't do. As a matter of fact, I guessed on only 1 question during the middle when I was pretty even as far as time was concerned and I didn't want to lose time on a single question. Towards the end, I was double checking my answers.

Then came the dreaded Verbal part. The first was a SC and I had NO CLUE. Lights out amigo. Made an educated guess and moved on. The second was another SC. NO BLEEPING CLUE. Game, set, match, no championship, ousted in the first round. I was getting concerned. So, took a deep breath and continued. A messed up CR on 3rd or 4th question. I started to get into a panic mode. A few questions later came RC which was 'ok'. I checked the time and I figured I wasn't doing too well. I was at question 13 around 48 minutes remaining. Few more CRs and SCs later came an RC passage that seemed like it was made for kindergarten. I kid you not. It was so simple that I contemplated at that point I should just sit and memorize it rather than continuing since I have probably messed up the Verbal section by now. Also, around question 20 or so, I noticed that I did not get a single @#$@#$% boldface which usually shows up, according to some posters, when you are doing well. Let the good times roll. Few more messed up SCs (I can tell you with all honesty that I had no confidence in majority of the SCs on the test) and CRs later shows up this nasty a$$ RC. I was around question 28 or so with 24 minutes left and I was in complete panic. I couldn't make head or tail out of it, it spanned page and a half (you had to scroll to read it) and there were FOUR questions based on it. I am fairly certain I got all of those wrong and at that point I was hoping that it was an experimental one. Well, I thought that if I got another RC, I will definitely not finish the section on time. And then I got two really nasty CRs that I boiled down to THREE choices by POE and guessed. Around question 35, I was so convinced that I have to retake (I had decided that anything less than 720 and I will retake) that I actually paused for a moment, looked around, took a deep breath and started contemplating whether I like Godfather-I more than Godfather-II or vice-versa. I then started thinking of Pulp Fiction that I saw umpteenth time a few days ago and cursed Tarantino for not letting us know what was in the suitcase. Somehow, cursing him made me focus again and I finished the section finally with couple of more educated guesses.

Then came the screens that ask you to fill out some personal info. After those came the moment of truth where GMAC asks you to 'report' or 'cancel'. It's like GMAC is being Mommy and asking you after school 'have you been good?' I paused. At that point, I could hear my own heartbeat. Then I said to myself, BLEEP it and clicked next. And then the digits showed up. 7 5 0 in that order. I shook my head in disbelief, goofy ass smile on my face and walked out of the test center. What a day!


Tad bit disappointed that I did not get a 51 in Q. It has got to be careless mistakes. Also, just in case anybody wants to know, here are my practice scores:

GMATPrep 1(baseline): 700
Kaplan 1: 660 (Q48, V36)
Princeton Review 1: 730 (Q50, V30)
Princeton Review 2: 710 (Q50, V41)
Princeton Review 3: 730 (Q51, V37)
MGMAT CAT 1: 710 (Q48, V39)
MGMAT CAT 2: 750 (Q48, V44)
MGMAT CAT 3: 720 (Q50, V38)
GMATPrep 2: 770 (Q51, V45)
GMATPrep 3 (re-install): 780 (Q51, V45)


Moral of the story: Cursing Tarantino calms you down.